Letters to the Editor
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Dogs??
Upthread RealName stated that this show was written for his dog. He's wrong. This show is not written for dogs...it's written for CATS. One of my best friends is a LOST fanatic, and I've watched the show with her a few times. She has a cat, and the cat watches the show with us. The little fucker sits in in front of the TV and watches. He doesn't bat at the images, or try to jump at them. He watches them.
That's why the show makes no sense. It wasn't written and produced for the human intellect. It's meant to appeal to Cat Logic which, if you've ever owned a cat, explains the meandering and aimless quality of the plots. It also explains why plot points are picked up, played with and then dropped at random, exactly like a rubber mouse.
Soon a race of Ubercatz - the real creators of this show - will send their hypno-signal through everyone's tube and then, at long last, ALL YOUR PUSSIES WILL GLOW IN THE DARK!
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"Lost" is just fine...
Maybe it's time we all stepped back, took a deep breath, and remembered that "Lost" is just a TV show -- an entertainment designed to distract us for an hour each week from the quiet desperation of our own troubled little lives. To use a thoroughly worn-out cliche, "Lost" is neither brain surgery nor rocket science. It's a television show -- and a network show to boot. You should be grateful a corporate network is actually offering up something as intriguing as "Lost".
Are the writers winging it? Of course. Does it matter? Not at all -- this is fiction, so they're making it up as they go along. Relax and enjoy the ride.
But if you really don't like it, don't watch it -- flip the dial, or better yet, turn the damned tube off and crack a book. Me, I like it just fine,and I think Daniel Zalewski got it exactly right. So if that makes me some kind of wide-eyed, slack-jawed drooler in the eyes of those who seem to consider "Lost" a criminal outrage, that's cool. De gustibus non est disputandum -- you go your way, I'll go mine, slobbering and drooling all the way.
But to employ yet another hoary, withered cliche, rather than obsessively ragging on "Lost", maybe you should try getting a life...
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Answers--shmansers, fix the real problem
Personally, I find the whole "calm down folks--answers are coming; your short attention spans will eventually be rewarded" to be a cop-out and somewhat condescending. Yes, I'm sure there are people who would prefer the whole thing be wrapped up in a nice neat bow after 20 episodes or so, but those are the critics that are far too easy to dismiss and so the only ones that ever get focused on. Note the title of the pre-show before the finale: "Answers", as if the only flaw in the show is its mystery. This "complaint about the complaint" by writers of the show and its fans reminds me of the typical job interview question/response:
Question: What is your greatest weakness
Answer: Why, my perfectionism. Or the fact I work too hard (or some other self-congratulatory "criticism")
The biggest problem with the show has nothing to do with pace or mystery; it is much more basic. It's that the writing is utterly arbitrary. Characters rarely, rarely act as real people would. Instead, they act as is required by the needs of the show. And that is the mark of bad writing. Characters withhold information when they need to, they share when they need to, they trust when they need to, and they mistrust when they need to, and so on, all based purely on the plot needs and not based on character or situation. Sawyer mistrusts Locke so much he puts a knife to his throat but 15 minutes later walks into a locked room ahead of Locke to see a mystery man covered in a hood that he "believes" is Ben because Locke (the guy he held a knife to because he mistrusted him) told him so. The women discover a new hatch and say nothing of it for ages and then even after they tell of it nobody goes there to look for any materials or information (you're living in palm huts trying to make a coconut radio while people are killing/abducting you--maybe you'd at least check out the place, the metal locker doors could have been used to support the Captain's hammock at least). Then we get a throwaway line "there's nothing there, the women searched it" when we all know they merely wandered in and out--that is just an insult to the viewer. And of course there are myriad other examples. One watches despite the growing anger and frustration in hopes they'll recapture some of that first season magic. At least if one is an optimist (as a hedge it helps to do your work while it's on). Last season was awful. This one was better though still with far too many of this sort of arbitrariness. "Greatest Hits" was by far the best and the finale offers hope for next year so at least they're trending right. But if the show is going to get back on track, it needs to do more than slap a new coat of paint on--i.e. "give us "answers". It needs to give us back characters. That's why we fell in love with the show in the first place.
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Time may tell
Not that these explain or add to or are really relevant to the ever-developing plot of "Lost," but here's what I like to think....
Slave ship in middle of jungle – 'homage' to Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo"
Smoke monster – 'homage' to "The Prisoner"'s Rover
Comprehensive dossiers – 'homage' to the CIA, or every conspiracy/Big Brother idea ever posited
Regardless of relevance, I love it that "Lost" – with all it's allusions (and oh the book references!) and illusions and switchbacks and shape/time shiftings (remember, "Lost"'s characters are still in 2004, slowly approaching 2005) – exercises one's 'little grey cells' and forces one to watch and listen very closely (and especially so if one doesn't have TiVo or Internet screen capture, whatever the heck that is...)!